by Paul Doherty
‘Greetings, Perfect of Face!
Possessor of Radiance
Whom Montu has exalted!
To whom Thoth has given the beautiful visage of
the gods.
Your right eye is the evening sun.
Your left eye is the rising sun.
Your eyebrows the Nine Gods.
Your forehead is Amun.
Fair of form are you,
Fierce-eyed lion,
Smiter of Kushites,
Crusher of the Vile Asiatics!’
After that our gruelling march would resume until the heat of the day grew so oppressive we would stop to camp. The Veiled One’s cart, no longer protected by his Kushites but by a unit of the Strong-Arm Boys, trundled in front of the donkey-train. He made no contact with me or anyone else until six days after leaving Buhen, in the first coolness of an afternoon whilst we camped at an oasis. Exhausted after finishing a march of about thirty miles, I was with the rest, crouching in the shade of a tree ready to share out bread and water. Any teasing or taunting, superficial conversation or arguments had long since ceased. We had neither the energy nor the inclination for them. Only three things mattered: food, water and sleep.
I was chewing on a crust when I received an invitation to join the Veiled One in his rectangular scarlet pavilion standing to the left of the makeshift altar to Amun-Ra where our standards were piled. The pavilion was quite small, erected so the vents caught the breeze. The Veiled One sat on a pile of cushions fanning himself vigorously. The small acacia table before him bore two reed platters of gazelle meat, bread and dried fruits, and a jar of white Charu wine. The pavilion was deserted. Some chests and boxes lay about. A clumsily erected camp bed screened by sheets stood in the corner, weapons were slung from a hook on a pole: a bow, a quiver of arrows, a leather corselet and a helmet of the same material. The Veiled One, however, was not dressed for war but in a gauffered linen robe with an embroidered sash. Beside him lay a curved sword and dagger, their blades glinting in the light of the oil lamps. He followed my gaze and smiled.
‘It looks impressive, Mahu, but we have to be ready.’ His smile widened. ‘Even though we know the rebels won’t attack.’
‘Where are your guards?’ I asked, obeying his gesture to sit at the other side of the table.
‘Left in Thebes,’ he replied lightly. ‘Can’t be trusted, or so my father says.’ He leaned across the table and pushed a small piece of gazelle meat into my mouth, his dark eyes glowing with humour. ‘We all know that’s nonsense. One of the reasons Egypt has been able to conquer Kush and Nubia is that their inhabitants hate each other more than they do us Egyptians.’ He bit into a piece of meat and I noticed how even and white his teeth were. He chewed his food slowly. The flap of the pavilion had been pulled back so he could watch the sun set behind the heat haze. He bowed his head and murmured a prayer then looked up, as if he was recalling something.
‘You are wondering why I am here, aren’t you?’ He lifted his cup and toasted me. ‘The answer is, I asked to come. Mother thought it was a good idea. Permission was granted surprisingly easily. I wonder,’ he laughed dryly. ‘I do wonder if the Magnificent One wants me back?’
I continued eating. The food was better than my own meal. Servants came and went, faint noises echoed from the camp: shouting, the neigh of horses, the lowing of oxen, whilst the wail of a conch horn marked the hours. The Veiled One asked about the Horus unit and the horrors of the march.
‘I feel so secure in my cart.’ His eyes held mine. ‘I have to sit there, whatever the heat, whatever the dust. Now, how about this campaign, Mahu?’
We discussed its finer points. The Veiled One showed a surprising knowledge, voicing the same concerns raised by Horemheb.
‘Our squadron is too small and too far ahead.’ He grasped his wine cup close to his shoulder and leaned across the table. ‘The nearest support is over thirty miles away, either to the North or West. We could easily be trapped and ambushed.’ He drank from the wine cup. ‘We could all be killed.’
‘You, too?’ I asked. The wine had emboldened me.
‘Not me,’ he replied lazily. ‘I shall not die here. My Father will protect me. You carry the scarab I gave you?’
I nodded.
‘Nor will you die.’ He drained the wine cup and grasped his walking cane. ‘Now it is cooler, we should go out.’
He crossed to the bed and picked up a pair of leather marching boots. Without asking I knelt and helped him put them on. He then demanded two military cloaks and, when they were brought, flung one at me. I’d heard the clatter and the neigh of horses as I finished the meal and found that a chariot had been prepared for us, a simple unadorned carriage with two horses. These were splendid creatures, with firm haunches and long legs, strong and black as the night. The Veiled One climbed in and handed me his cane. I took it and placed it in the javelin container. I wondered what was going to happen but was reluctant to ask. It was not yet sunset so the camp was still busy. No one stopped us as we rattled along the trackway past the horselines and quartermaster wagons into the brooding grey-brown desert. The sun was beginning to sink though it would be some time before it disappeared behind the horizon and the darkness came rushing in. The air was still hot and dry. The Veiled One clicked his tongue and shook the reins. We passed the picket lines; he then reined in and took the leather water jar from the pouch of gazelle skin attached to the side of the chariot. He pulled the stopper, handed it over and watched me drink.
‘Good?’ he asked, lifting the reins.
‘Fresh,’ I replied.
The Veiled One nodded. He waited a while then with one hand took the water jar from me and drank himself. He had used me as his taster. No wonder he was so confident that he would not die. He pointed with the waterskin to the distant mountain range which rose above the heavy haze.
‘They change colour in the sun,’ he remarked. ‘And become so hot even the precious stones are transformed.’
He let the horses walk; the chariot swayed and creaked as the desert ground dipped and rose, treacherous land with its gullies, shallow valleys and rocky outcrops. The Veiled One made the chariot twist and turn. The horses were nervous and so was I. Dark threatening shapes appeared, then vanished. The silence was oppressive, abruptly shattered by a howl, roar or the scream of some bird. I checked the bow and quiver of arrows. I eased the javelin in and out of the container. We passed scouts and foragers returning to the camp. Some were empty-handed, others carried the meagre game they had slaughtered. Soon we were by ourselves. No camp behind us, nothing but the sun, reddening the sky and that grey, dangerous land. The Veiled One nudged me playfully.
‘They say we will soon be in the heart of enemy territory; until then we are safe.’ He stared up, whispering to himself. ‘My mother takes me out to the desert. She always has since – well, since I can remember. I like the desert. No mean streets, no pomp or ceremony.’
The horses whinnied and the Veiled One reined in. In a small rocky gully we glimpsed bones white and shattered, cracked and chipped; a skull lay next to a boulder like some broken toy. The Veiled One handed me the reins, grasped his cane and climbed down. He walked over and sifted amongst the bones.
‘No copper or bronze,’ he remarked as he squatted down. ‘They must have been Neferu – raw recruits, deserters. They left the camp and fled in the wrong direction.’
The roar of a hyena did not disturb him.
‘What do you think, Mahu?’ He picked up a thighbone already turning yellow. ‘This once belonged to a man. We know where his flesh went, into the belly of a hyena. But where is his ka? According to the shaven heads,’ he pointed the bone at me, ‘the ka of this man will never reach the Fields of the Blessed: his body hasn’t been mummified, the blessing of Osiris is lacking. He has no heart, so how can he be judged on the Scales of Truth? Do you think he deserved that? Or doesn’t it matter?’
He rose, resting on his cane, threw the bone away and came back to the chariot, lost i
n his thoughts. ‘What do you think, Mahu?’ he asked softly. ‘What happened to the Ka of that man?’ He rubbed his fingers together. ‘Is it like smoke after the fire has gone out? Is that all he meant? Or will his Ka go somewhere else, to a place we cannot see?’ He drew his eyebrows together, refused my offer of help and climbed back into the chariot. ‘And what happened when he reaches the Fields of the Blessed? They must be crowded. Don’t you have any answers, Mahu?’
‘I am a soldier, not a priest.’
‘“I am a soldier not a priest”,’ the Veiled One mimicked, face only a few inches from mine. He kissed me abruptly on the cheek. ‘Do you know what I think?’
I stared back.
‘I think the priests lie. They make up stories to keep their power strong and their bellies full. I don’t think there is a Ka.’
‘Nothingness?’ I replied. ‘That’s possible.’
‘No, I did not say that.’ The Veiled One gathered the reins. ‘I think there is a Blessed West and the souls, of the chosen ones, like flames of fire, go there.’
‘And who chooses them?’ I asked.
‘Why, the One who has chosen them from all eternity.’
‘And how do you know you are chosen?’
Intrigued, I waited for an answer, watching the sun sinking fast, splintering the sky with red and gold rays. The roar and growl of night prowlers echoed on the strengthening breeze, and I caught that hideous stench of rotting meat. We had entered another small gully; the rocks around us, transformed by the setting sun, were no longer part of a landscape but something else which had sprung to life with a brooding menace.
‘How do you know you are chosen?’ I repeated.
The Veiled One turned the chariot round, flicking the reins. ‘You know you are chosen, Mahu – just as today, I have chosen to eat and drink with you and share my thoughts with you.’
I stared up at the rocky escarpment and caught the moving outline of a large head and ruffled mane. The Veiled One followed my gaze.
‘Don’t be anxious.’ He urged the horses up the escarpment and back onto the level plain. In the far distance the fires of our camp sparked and faded. The darkness was coming down, as it does in the desert, swift as a hawk from the sky. I looked to the left and right; shapes were slinking alongside us, watching the horses, searching for any weakness. I was concerned but the Veiled One began to sing:
‘Oh you who are beautiful on the horizon
Whose loving power never sleeps.’
He urged the horses into a gallop, guiding them skilfully back into the camp. Grooms and servants came hurrying up. Grasping his cane, the Veiled One climbed down and looked up at me.
‘You wonder why, Mahu, Baboon of the South, but in time you’ll learn.’
He walked away. I returned to my campfire. My companions had eaten well on a quail Horemheb had brought down. Now they were settling in for the night. I took my blanket, rolled myself in it and lay down, my head against a leather pannier. Horemheb asked me where I had been but I pretended not to hear.
Two days later, the enemy struck – but not to the bray of trumpets or standards flying. No, they came pouring out of a gully like locusts streaking towards our carts: warriors, black as night, armed with shields and spear, running silently, taking advantage of our column half-drowsy under the relentless sun. We barely had time to grasp our weapons then it was shield against shield, sobbing and cursing, hacking at oiled bodies, dodging and feinting. No glorious chariot war but a grim hand-to-hand struggle. Our unit was between the carts and the horses. The enemy had struck before we’d even realised it. They tried to break our line of march, dancing to the left and right, thrusting with spears, grim figures of death.
The swirl of battle pushed me back towards the carts, away from my companions. I grasped my shield and slippery-handled khopesh. I was knocked, spun around and came face to face with a Kushite standing on a cart, ostrich plumes in his hair. He’d speared the driver and, weapon up and shield to one side, was preparing to jump down. We clashed in a bloody sweaty embrace, his breath hot on me. A war-painted face, glaring eyes, body soaked in oil. There was a fierce tussle, but then he stumbled on a corpse. I drove my sword into the soft part of his neck, ripping through flesh and muscle. He fell, body slackening, blood gushing out of his nose and mouth. I thrust him away; my stomach felt heavy and sick, my legs were trembling. I had killed. Bending over, I hacked off his right hand, lifting the bloody flesh up to the sky. I forgot my pains, the heaviness in my chest and belly, but now attacked with fury, eyes half-closed, lashing out to the left and right.
The attack faded, our assailants retreating like shadows under the sun. Some of our men were wounded grievously and had to be despatched with a dagger-thrust across the throat. The Nakhtu-aa, the Strong-Arm Boys, did this, moving quickly along our column, speaking gently to those who were beyond our care and slicing with a knife. There’d be a gargle, a last sigh, as they turned the body over. Our unit was safe. Horemheb had killed four times, the bloody hands piled at his feet, Rameses twice and Sobeck once. Rameses had the bloodlust on him. I am not too sure whether it was from anger or fear. He was insistent that the enemy dead be mutilated and, when I objected, he just shrugged and, moving off, began to hack at bellies. The enemy wounded were bound hand and foot, pushed out into the hot sand and buried alive. Two were saved for questioning, spread across fires and tortured but they were brave and told us nothing. Sobeck cut their throats and left their flesh to burn. The vultures were now flocking in above us, black shapes against the blue sky. Perra ordered all the enemy dead to be decapitated, their heads placed on stakes thrust into the sand.
A lector priest led us in a hymn of victorious thanks to Amun-Ra: ‘Oh you who are All-Mighty, All-Seeing and All-Powerful … !’
Our dried throats croaked the words then we moved on. The column was now battle-ready, scouts and flankers out. I was congratulated on my kill. Horemheb noted the severed hand and placed it with the rest, a grisly pile for the hyenas to eat once the scribe had estimated the number slain. I made enquiries about the Veiled One: he had taken cover in his cart, untouched and untroubled – the Nakhtu-aa had seen to that.
As the days passed, such attacks became common, the enemy taking full advantage of the terrain with its hidden gullies, outcrops, ravines and shallow valleys. The attacks were always the same bloody, terrifying hand-to-hand clashes. The Kushite chiefs were intent on damaging our carts and causing as much destruction as possible amongst our horses and oxen. A second column began to follow us, the lions, hyenas and jackals and, above us, Pharaoh’s birds, the vultures, all keen on the bloody trail we left behind us.
Even at night we were not safe. Figures, like wraiths from the Underworld, leaped across our defences, scrambled under our carts, bringing death with a swift spearthrust. Horemheb came into his own now; albeit not as experienced, he proved to be a better combat officer than Perra. Every night when we camped he insisted on digging a shallow ditch and throwing up an escarpment on which the Menfyt placed their war-shields to form an interlocking wall. The night attacks stopped but, during the day, they still came, these stealthy warriors, fighting for their homes and families. We killed and killed again. My number of hands increased. My fears disappeared, the trembling stopped. I was a butcher doing what I was supposed to do. In truth I was more concerned at betraying my fear in front of my comrades than to the enemy.
Horemheb declared himself proud of our unit. No one mentioned how Pentju and Meryre always disappeared during these attacks though, I suppose, Meryre prayed and Pentju did tend to our cuts and bruises. Horemheb said he would recommend me for the Gold Collar of Valour. I shrugged, more desperate for pure water, soft bread and succulent meat. The Veiled One sent me another amulet, of purest gold, depicting a rampant sphinx trampling an Asian. The gift was delivered secretly. I did not show it to the rest but kept it close, as I did the other, during that long frenetic march. The number of our dead rose. Corpses were given quick burial but the Horus unit remained
untouched. Pentju took a cut across his cheek which Horemheb claimed would mark him for life as a brave man. Pentju didn’t understand the sarcasm. Meryre, ever gabbling his prayers, lost a tooth from a slingshot. Huy took a spearthrust in the fleshy part of his leg which made him dance, as Rameses remarked, ‘like a temple heset’. Sobeck remained untouched: a cold, resolute fighter, quick and deadly as a striking snake. Horemheb and Rameses positively thrived, as Huy murmured, ‘like the true drinkers of blood they were’. As the attacks continued, Horemheb and Rameses often came to confer with me; ‘The Mighty General’, as I now called Horemheb, studying me with those small black eyes in that strong face, Rameses, his perpetual shadow, smirking behind him as he clicked his tongue, nodding at my replies. The mood in our corps had changed and Horemheb was deeply worried.
‘I am concerned,’ he confided one night, as we sheltered in a small oasis eager for its water which the Kushites hadn’t polluted. ‘I am most concerned, Baboon of the South,’ he repeated. ‘The Kushites are great in number, more than we thought. It’s as if …’ He played with the bracelets on his wrist.
‘It’s as if what?’ I snapped. I was tired and they had stopped me on my way to fill a waterskin. I wasn’t in the mood for military strategy.
‘It’s as if the Kushites are concentrating on us.’ Rameses finished the sentence for his companion. ‘Their attacks are persistent. Two other corps are also moving East, the Glory of Ptah to the North and the Vengeance of Isis to the South.’
‘We also know,’ Horemheb took up the complaint, ‘that behind us are the supply wagons and reserves, not to mention our main force. The Magnificent One’s ships are sailing down the coast yet the enemy seem to be massing solely against us.’
‘Perhaps they know you are here?’ I teased.
Horemheb tapped me on the cheek and walked away shaking his head, his evil genius trotting behind him.